Here's the background: as best as I can recall about 10 years ago, my mum asked me if I'd stitch something for her and I agreed. She sent me a counted cross stitch kit as a Millennium Project (you know, to welcome in the next millennium, starting with the year 2000?)- and I'm sorry to say I still haven't finished it. The project has been sidelined many times - one of the first two reasons had to do with lighting - the colour changes were very subtle especially on the angel's dress and I had trouble seeing the colours well. The second had to do with my lifelong battle with eczema on my hands - this stopped me from working on it because I either couldn't bend my fingers or my skin would snag the thread and cause it to fray or continuously pull the thread from the needle. My mom resolved the lighting issue by giving me 2 Ott lights.
Another problem I've had is that my arm goes numb depending on how I hold the hoop and more realistically, I've also let myself get sidelined with other projects namely knitting and crochet, gardening and life in general. The biggest excuse is that I just didn't do it at all.
So now that all the Christmas projects are done, I have decided that I will finish this project and I will no longer keep it to myself - I will share my progress and make myself accountable, this must be done in 2009! I also realized that this project is not named for the new Millennium. No - in fact it's called a "Millennium Angel" because it's taken me a millennium of hours and a millennium of stitches! And by the time I've finally finished this project...... I sure hope my mum still wants it!
What it's supposed to look like:
see more details and photos on Flickr (link here). Maybe we should have a little contest to see who can guess which month I'll finish it in? What's your guess - name the month and date.......
3 comments:
I have seen this in person and holy crap! The stitches are soooo teeny and the colour changes so subtle- I don't know how you do it- I would have given up so long ago!
Depending on how much you do at a time it's a tough guess but I will guess March 26!
Get out your Ott light. I'm going to guess June 8th, 2009.
It looks like you've done a LOT of work already. It's really a work of art. I'll bet you'll feel great when it's done....or exhausted. I choose Dec.1.
I have a cross stitch project that I haven't touched in about 4 years. I used to only work on it when we went camping (which back then was every single weekend...rain or shine). You might be inspiring me to pick it up again. I love it, but have to use a magnifying light to do it (which I have but need to set up).
I don't have eczema but my hands are horribly dry and get cracks that catch my yarn all the time. In an earlier post you talked about a wonderful cream/sauve that you use. What is it?
Post a Comment